


never never never stop for anyone

by soaringrachel



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soaringrachel/pseuds/soaringrachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which the x-factor is a show for hopeful superheroes instead of singers. that's about all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never never never stop for anyone

**Author's Note:**

> I actually have loads more ideas for this 'verse (LITTLE MIX) but decided to leave off at the end of X Factor, which is why the ending might feel a little loose. Possible sequel? Maybe?
> 
> Thanks to Rachel, of course (smileskully on tumblr) for concept development work, constant pre-reading, and general life support, and to (okay DEEP breath) Charlie, Tessa, Rachel, Zoop, Jay, and Julia (monsterdefencesquad, partygentle, queerwerewolves, zoopdeloop, nicojason, eisenbergandelephants) for letting me shove this at them at various stages of completeness and giving me the confidence to get something written again, love you ALL.

Niall knows from day one what he wants to be when he grows up—a superhero, like the ones he sees on TV and in the newspapers and even once in person, helping to clean up after a storm.

Mostly people sort of laugh when he tells them, which stings, but it can’t change his mind. It’s one of his babysitters who first tells him no in so many words, tells him, “Superheroes have, you know, _superpowers_ , Ni. Faster’n a speeding bullet. You’re just as fast as a kid. No one ever got to be a superhero like that.

Niall frowns. “I’ll be the first, then.”

 

There are two other kids with superpowers at Liam’s school. Roxie can run around the playground in six seconds; Kevin can talk to animals, though he says they’re really boring. He wants to be an artist one day. Roxie wants to be a lawyer. Liam hates them.

“What’s the _point_ of superpowers,” he grumbles in his weekly session with the school counselor, “if you’re not gonna _save_ people with them?”

Mrs. Ross smiles and touches his hand. He’s pushing too hard again, denting her desk.

“What’s the _point_ of all this,” he says again, dropping his hand, “if you don’t _use_ it?”

 

Harry gets called to the principal’s office in Grade Five for kissing Minna Wellington. “She wanted me to!” he protests, squirming in his chair.

“That’s not really the question,” Ms. Perkins says, but he can tell he’s charming her already.

He gets out five minutes later. Not even a slap on the wrist. It’s all right, he reasons, Minna _did_ want him to.

 

It starts out with football. Louis is really good at football. Not so good they don’t let him play, which happened to a boy two years above him, just good. He’s a little faster to the ball, a little stronger with his kicks, a little less out of breath at the end of a match, is all. It’s just _talent_.

Except then his stupid, stupid doctor decides to test his reflexes. And then says “hm” and runs a couple more tests, and a couple more, and one more . . .

And then Louis can’t play football anymore. Because it turns out Louis is just a little too good for his own good.

 

Zayn reads the brochures when he gets old enough to read, “Your Superpowers and You,” but they don’t mean much to him, a lot of shiny babble about bullying and free counseling. He can feel, all the time, the barometric pressure, the electricity in the air, the heavy promise of snow, and that means something. He can hear his mother’s voice cautioning deep breaths, his father’s hand on his bringing him back to calm, helping him brush the clouds hanging over the house, and that means something. He reads, when he gets old enough to read, superpowered novelists, from de Quincy through Sidibe, and that means something too, the books serious about what it means to be a man (or sometimes a woman) with the power of a god. (A lot of the novelists use that phrase, “power of a god.” Zayn doesn’t like it, but he also doesn’t know what to call it when it’s him, sometimes, that makes the rain fall, the sun shine.)

Liam flies for the first time on his thirteenth birthday. He has an idea that he can do it for a few weeks before that, but he waits for his birthday, to make it special. It’s _wild_ , this feeling—Liam has never been what you’d call light, always been the solid, strong boy in the second-to-back row of a classroom. On his thirteenth birthday, he soars.

He can see his mum on the ground, staring up at him holding his birthday cake; he can see the triplets playing in the next-door backyard. He can see the sky almost close enough to touch. It feels really, really good. It feels heroic.

 

It’s Gemma who first figures out, says to him, “Maybe you have, like, a superpower.”

It sounds like a joke, almost, but Harry knows she’s not joking, that she’s about as earnest as she ever is. He spreads out his skinny growth-spurt arms. “Yep. Superman right here.”

Gemma shakes her head. “I mean how you always know what people are feeling? I mean like. You _always_ know.”

Harry frowns. “Doesn’t everyone, though?”

 

Louis can’t play football, so he gets into drama. At first it’s because they do yoga in drama class and he likes showing off how he’s better at it than everyone else (the doctor reads him a long list, enhanced stamina, speed, reflexes, flexibility), but it suits him, in the end.

Drama’s not like sports—they like show-offs here, and Louis’s happy to oblige. He’s getting good roles pretty fast, because he’s got stage presence, his teacher says, and he’s always handy in musicals because he can pick up acrobatics that you couldn’t normally do on a school stage. He could go pro, his teacher says, but Louis isn’t sure. He hasn’t really been sure about anything for a while, to tell the truth.

 

By the time Zayn’s sixteen, hardly anyone even knows about his powers; he doesn’t use them by accident anymore, and there’s no reason to use them on purpose. He misses, sometimes, the feeling of losing control and feeling rain in his blood, but mostly he’s proud of himself for keeping so calm. He doesn’t even think about it that much anymore—there are other novels to read, other parts of himself to come forward. He knows, because he still _can_ feel it, that he’s very, very powerful, even for someone with powers at all, but it doesn’t have to be relevant unless he wants it to be.

And mostly, he doesn’t want it to be. That’s not the kind of guy he is.

 

Niall does a little research—there are a couple conservatories still, doing what they call “classical training” for superheroes, but even if they’d  take him, they’re way too expensive, out of the question. Doesn’t really make sense to him anyway, charging you for that, so he figures maybe that’s not the kind of hero he wants to be anyway. Then there’re apprenticeships, but mostly kids who have those live in London or New York or Jerusalem, places where there’re lots of heroes to apprentice with. And most of those kids are rich too, or have connections. Seems to Niall like it’s not powers that stop you from being a superhero, like there are too many other things in his way for that to even start to be an issue.

 

Harry thinks of The X-Factor almost as a joke, really, watching TV with a friend and an ad comes on and he jabs his chin at it and says “I could make them take me.”

The friend—he doesn’t even remember, later, who it was—laughs, says “I’d pay to see you sweet-talk the judges.” Harry laughs too—it is funny, super strong guys and flying girls and then Harry batting his eyelashes? But it’s a kind of funny that sticks with him somehow, a kind of funny that he can’t stop thinking about, until he finds himself in line at way too early in the morning between a girl with snakes for hair and someone green and shimmery.

 

Afterwards, Liam studies hard but he trains harder. He feels like he does nothing but work, like he has to do nothing but work—in school, so no one can say he doesn’t have a backup plan, and after school, so that he never, never has to use it.

So he studies vocabulary words and gets flying drills off the Internet, takes his neighbor’s old calculator and his cousin’s old running shoes. He falls into bed most nights exhausted, mind and body, but he isn’t unhappy. He knows what he wants, and he knows how to get it—never stop working hard.

 

The whole year Zayn is seventeen, he feels rain boiling under his skin. (Which is normal, his mother reminds him.) He needs simultaneously to do _something_ with all that power just below the surface, and to never let it out into the open air. He tries at first to ignore it, shut it down, but there’s a point where he can’t anymore, where his hair stands up straight with extra electricity and his fingers tap out thunder rhythms, where he has to find somewhere to put all this strength. Zayn doesn’t think of himself as a superhero, but he’s thinking he might explode if he doesn’t try.

 

It’s a hot day when Niall stands in line to try out for The X-Factor, but he’s a little shy of taking off his jacket and showing how burly he _isn’t_. He’s not a nervous person, Niall, but this could be it, his only chance, and it feels like his heart is getting ready to beat right out of his chest.

When he gets to the door there’s a girl there with a clipboard. She asks for his name and he tells her, “Niall Horan,” and she slaps a number on him.

“Power?” she asks, and he looks her in the eye and says “Courage.”

 

“Show us what you’ve got,” the man behind the table says, and Louis grins too wide, because _that_ he can do.

He starts with gymnastics, and Louis knows his gymnastics are something to brag about, that he can make jaws drop. (He didn’t bother thinking up a routine, though, and it’s a little disjointed. But he’s still grinning like it’s Christmas.) He runs next, letting them clock him so they’ve got numbers proving he’s worth their time. And then he jumps, bends his knees and goes straight up, up, up until he’s looking down on them, until he’s almost flying, until he has to let himself drop down to the ground.

 

Zayn’s relieved, beyond relieved, they put him in a group, doesn’t want the eyes of the world on him alone, glad he can rely on Liam’s strength and Harry’s charm in practice so he doesn’t need to draw on all he can do. He knows keeping that quiet means he can’t be loud, the boys can’t get to know him like they can showboating Louis and smiling Niall, but he’s afraid if he did let himself out it’d be too much, that they wouldn’t want to know him, and right now he thinks they do. Liam does, great Clark Kentish lump that he is. Sometimes after a practice Liam’ll sit down next to him, shoulder to shoulder and quiet, and Zayn’ll feel peaceful like he does when he makes it softly snow.

 

Louis’s fought with Liam again, something stupid about his spinning kicks, all just covering up the fact that Louis knows Liam doesn’t want to be saddled with his useless self. Even more useless than Niall, he is—he knows stupid Payne thinks so anyway, because Niall at least knows how to focus, and Louis, well, Louis knows how to have fun. Liam’s wrong about the spinning kicks, though, They’re _excellent_ spinning kicks,

“You were great today,” Harry says, and Louis starts, too busy fuming to have seen him there on the couch.

“C’mere, you were great,” he says again, and Louis knows it’s just what he wants to hear, but he goes over and lets Harry hug him for a while.

 

Niall doesn’t mean to, knows he shouldn’t, but he checks the Internet. Blog posts first, but then comments—“wtf is that blond kid doing there,” “lol 1 direction r gunna get sent home,” and his stomach goes cold and yucky. He knows he shouldn’t, but he gets addicted, does it every day, until he goes to Liam and says, “I’m out, I’m leaving, you can all win it without me.”

But Liam frowns, says, “We need you,” like it’s that simple. And it isn’t, but okay, Niall nods.

“All right,” he says, because Liam is the one of them most like a real superhero already, “I’ll stay.”

 

Harry’s so happy, he’s probably never been happier, he’s so happy he almost forgets there’s a competition to win. Everyone else isn’t happy yet, is the only thing wrong, but Harry figures give him a few weeks and he can set it right. He beams at Zayn, plays cards with Liam, cuddles Louis and tells him he’s done good. Quite truthfully, too, even if he’s mostly just trying to make Louis’s feelings do that glowy thing. It’s quite a _nice_ glowy thing.

He just likes it all so much, is all—likes these boys, likes this team, even likes the cameras. So for now, Zayn may be scared, and Niall insecure, Liam nervous and Louis angry, but Harry is very, very happy.

 

They’re doing a challenge, saving fake orphans (or maybe they’re real orphans, Liam doesn’t know) from a fake fire, and it’s not going well. Niall’s fake injured, the kids are wailing, Liam’s trying to drag people out but he’s only got two arms and they’re going to fail, this is it, they’re—

“Okay,” Louis says.

“Okay, Harry, calm those kids down. Zayn? Could we get some rain over here? Liam—” he pauses, but, “Liam, with me, let’s save some babies.”

They stare for a second, and then Louis claps and says “Snap to!” and Liam, well, snaps to.

“You did good,” he says, after, when the fire is out and the children safe and happy.

“You did good, too,” Louis says, and Liam can’t help himself. He smiles.

 

And now Louis wants to win. Now Louis wants One Direction to take the whole thing. It goes without saying that Harry picks up on it first. He sort of shrugs and goes along with it, and Louis feels a little bit guilty about letting him do it, but that’s for later. Right now, winning.

Liam and Zayn are on board next, Liam because he always wanted to, Zayn because he’s got something of why Louis himself is in it, Louis thinks, even if it’s harder to see.

And then one day Niall looks at Liam and says, “We’re gonna _do_ this, yeah?” and Louis grins behind his hand—he’s got them.

 

The theme for week four is “highway robbery,” so they’re finally out of the studio—still a fake crime they’re stopping, granted, but Niall’s so glad not to be sequestered that he doesn’t mind wasting his time on this. Personally he thinks One Direction are good enough already to go battle the Cerulean Menace, but he doesn’t think even the other boys would agree on that yet. So fake crime it is, for a while anyway.

It starts out great, with Liam punching one of the baddies off his motorbike, Louis grabbing it and leading the second one on a whooping chase, Zayn bringing up a wind to knock the third guy down. Not much for Harry this week, Niall notices sadly, but he hasn’t got much time for regret, running to put paid to the guy Zayn blew down, who’s still trying to sneak off with the fake money. He’s got a swing ready from behind—Niall’s no Liam, but he can throw a right cross—when he hears a shout and it throws him off, sending him wide and the guy right onto him. Niall doesn’t get angry, not easy, but he’s getting beaten up, and there’s more than one of them shouting now, a whole crowd of rubberneckers, and if this were real someone could’ve really gotten hurt—he’s more confused than angry really, but still when he finally wrestles out from under the guy he wants to go and shout at the onlookers, tell them off.

And he would, but there’s Harry, touching a finger to his nose, calming Niall down, turning to the crowd with, unbelievably, an a-grade smile on his face.

 

After week four, it’s all the time—in the studio training, sneaking down for coffees, every week at the challenges, people watching. Harry loves it. It’s exhilarating, it’s everything to him, all these people and all they want is to see him. And okay, maybe they just want to see him screw up, but still they’re there for him, him and the boys, and that lifts him so high he almost knows what it’s like being Liam.

And more than enjoying it, he can work with it. Which is good, because he has to work with it, because Liam and Zayn and Niall can’t do their jobs with people angry at them, because he has to make the country love them if they want the votes to stay in, because no matter how much Simon Cowell likes them, they’re not gonna be real superheroes unless Harry makes sure that a lot of other people do, too.

 

And then Zayn’s sitting in a corner, doodling thunderbolts; the boys are around him, Harry flopped on top of Niall on the couch, Liam and Louis, bizarrely, arm wrestling. (Even more bizarrely, Liam seems to be letting Louis win.)

“Hey,” Zayn says, before he fully realizes he’s going to.

“Hey, I just wanted to,” he pauses, doesn’t want to say, “if this is the last chance.”

“Well, thank you,” he finishes.

It’s Niall, of course, who’s brave enough to say it: “If we don’t make it tonight . . . let’s not split up, okay?”

Liam shakes his head fast; Zayn can see he’s biting his lip, flashes him a smile.

“One Direction,” Harry says, grabbing Niall’s hand, and Zayn knows it’s dorky but he goes and grabs on too, Liam and Louis following.

Later, he thinks, he’ll remember this moment, and he wants so bad to know now if it’s gonna be bitter or sweet.

 

Liam was in the air just minutes ago, but he’s never felt heavier, solider, than he does now. Grounded, grounded _again_ —he needs to just accept he’s not a superhero, but somehow he can’t make himself, is already thinking about how to try _again_ , and that hurts the most, that he doesn’t know how to just give up.

He’s in the dressing room with the boys—they’d finally found costumes they really liked this week, red and gray, and now no one has taken theirs off, sitting here being an X-Factor team for a few minutes longer, before street clothes and trains home and regular life.

Except, of course, that isn’t what comes next. Liam doesn’t even remember it properly later, just an emotional blur—but regular life doesn’t come next. One Direction does.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] never never never stop for anyone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060870) by [zoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoop/pseuds/zoop)




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